How to Play Super Bowl Squares
Super Bowl squares are one of the oldest ways to have fun during the big game. You can create your own grid, or download our free printable super bowl squares grid here. Save yourself the time of creating a grid and having to find a ruler – just print our grid!
The grey boxes represent the possible score combinations of the game, with the leftgrey boxes representing the NFC team champion (Carolina Panthers), and the topgrey boxes representing the AFC team champion (Denver Broncos).
Rules of the Game
There are 100 squares of play (the white boxes). The grey boxes running along theleft and top of the game are to randomly assign numbers 0 – 9 AFTER all whitesquares have been filled in.
To fill in the grid of white boxes, participants write their names on which squaresthey want. It is up to the ‘commissioner’ of the game (YOU!) to determine the priceper square. $1, $2, $5 or $10 – whatever you feel will work for your group of friendsand family or coworkers. Collect money as people fill in their squares – so you cankeep track and not chase down players for money.
Be prepared to fill in the grey squares to the left and above the white boxes. Writethe numbers 0 through 9 on individual pieces of paper, fold them up and put them ina bowl or a hat. You will randomly draw numbers to fill in the left and top greyboxes to keep the squares game fair and not give the advantage to anyone, includingyourself. Once you draw all the numbers and fill up the left grey boxes (work yourway from top to bottom), fold the numbers back up, put them back in the hat andthen repeat the process for the top grey boxes, working your way from left to right.
Make sure you have your Super Bowl Squares grid filled out before the big gamestarts! Have all the money collected, and determine how you want to award thewinner(s). Typically, at the end of each quarter there is one winner. The winner isbased off of what the current score of the game is. For example: if the score at theend of the game is Denver 10, Carolina 21, you would find the number 0 in the toprow, and the number 1 in the left row, and find the white box where those twonumbers intersect. The person with their name in the box in the winner for thatquarter.
It is up to the ‘commissioner’ of the squares game to decide whether the 4th quarterwinner is determined by the 4th quarter score, or the overall score of the game in theevent of overtime. Most of the time, the final score of the game determines the 4thquarter winner.
Example of a Super Bowl Squares payout structure
The most common way to structure the payout is one winner for each quarter (1st,2nd and 3rd) and then a 4th winner for the final square. The payouts can either beequal, or increase in amount for each quarter, with the final score of the gamewinning the most.
Let’s say you collect $10 off per square. That gives you a $1,000 pot to split upamong the 4 quarters of play. You can split it equally, with $250 to each winner atthe end of every quarter, or you can stagger the winnings to increase with eachquarter. An example would look like this: 1st Quarter: $150 – 2nd Quarter: $200 – 3rdQuarter: $300 – 4th Quarter: $350. You can split up the winnings however you wouldlike, but just make sure you have it clearly outlined for every player before you sellsquares.
Keep in mind – one person can win more than once… it just all depends on wheretheir squares are, as players can purchase as many squares as they would like. Ifyou have a large party or office, you may have to initially put a cap on the number ofsquares for each player to give everyone the opportunity to play.
Let the fun begin!
